“Cruella Deville meets Mary Poppins meets Kate Bush” – that’s how Austin, Texas, based band the Tuna Helpers have been described, and it’s pretty darned accurate. Adrienne and Bethany are the odd and delightful sisters who form the basis of a trio that is rounded out by their similarly odd & delightful long lost sister Khattie.

Immediately upon hearing them you wonder how it could even be: at times it’s like a doll come to life singing to you with an operatic voice, & teaching you to waltz to sparse drum beats on broken toys. To complete the effect, at shows the Tuna Helpers visually dazzle audiences with puppet shows and American Sign Language. Though theirs is a tapestry of gothic styling, they uniquely weave the doctrines of girly power, gross-out contests and sophisticated musical sensibilities into what they hope will become your favorite doll.

Here are instructions to build your own Tuna Helpers doll, coming straight from the band:
Gather the following:

all your childhood terrors

pictures of the grandmother that soothes you

your first pair of teenage thigh-high stockings

the soundtrack that played in your head when you planned the death of your first love.

Next, stitch them all together with guitar strings and lace, stuff it with corn syrup blood and rotten fish guts, and voila! A Tuna Helpers doll of your own!
Or you can just buy the CD.

A band full of surprises, there are quite a number of densley grandiose numbers on this CD interlaced with their sparse and charmed puppet-theater numbers. The darkened Disney-core these ladies specialize in is for sure embracing of childhood, but the Tuna Helpers do it in a a way that is more rounded than the adult impression of “childish.” It is a compulsory vision rendered so concrete and solid you can curl up in a ball and live inside it. Backed up by full orchestral strings, harpsichords, clavinets and chorus voices, and with the production duties handled by Trey Spruance of the Secret Chiefs 3, all Tuna Helpers private mythologies come vividly across from the dream world and right into your speakers. Open yourself to this magical world and find yourself generously rewarded.